Seeing Eye Dog Fennel: January
4, 2010-February 4, 2021

I knew my trajectory to return to The Seeing Eye for my sixth dog
would be different this time. After March last year when the school, in
Morristown, New Jersey shut down like the rest of the country, I wondered what
this would mean since Fennel had recently turned 10 and it was time to apply to
the school for a successor dog. I applied in May and planned for what I hoped
would be the case while the pandemic lasted, that since she was in good health
that Fennel would continue working for many months to come, maybe until she was
12. Then she would live out the rest of her days with us as a pet, and surely The
Seeing Eye would be training dogs and students again at pre-covid levels and I’d
get that much-anticipated phone call that they’d found a match for me. But an
optimistic, hoped for plan is not real life and I’m not in control.

When I came home from The Seeing Eye in May of 2012 with Fennel, I
felt confident in my ability to teach her the routes we’d be taking and
destinations we’d be going to in Savannah. I had been matched with a
self-assured shepherd who was ready to take on life as a guide dog. She’d
gotten to that point through early shaping by her New Jersey puppy raisers, and
then through solid training with Rivi Israel. I remain grateful for their
efforts and success with Fennel. I’m grateful, also, to Pete Jackson, whose in-class
work with both Fennel and me set us up for success. I couldn’t believe my good
fortune to have worked with PJ, a trainer whose knowledge of dogs and their
behavior is second to none. He was called out of retirement to assist in my
class. He didn’t know Fennel, but I fully trusted his assessment that Fennel wouldn’t
become territorial, that she didn’t have a suspicious bone in her body. After
experiencing that problem with my third dog, Lana, I needed that reassurance,
and his judgement proved correct.

As Fennel learned my neighborhood and beyond, I started learning who
she was, or at least I tried. Her personality isn’t readily described. She
wasn’t playful, in the sense that she had no interest in toys, in retrieving balls,
in chewing on bones of any kind. Her notion of play was to chase and be chased.
She loved running loops in the yard to expend energy, and her speed and
athleticism, especially as she grew older, was something to see. She could be
affectionate, but in a reserved way, and she didn’t solicit attention from strangers
when she was working.

I’m slow to bond with dogs, and Fennel was no exception. Maybe it
was her, or maybe it was me and my devotion to cats.  It became evident after we’d been a team for nine
months that she favored Don over he, and I witnessed her preference every day
of her life with me. If I left the house without her, upon my return she was
glad I was back and it seemed she greeted me with, ‘oh, you’re back; nice to
see you.’ If Don left, she was watching for his return and did somersaults when
he came in the door. Don certainly wasn’t caring for Fennel and didn’t shower her
with attention, but I think because her primary puppy raiser was a man, she was
imprinted early on to favor men.

Her preference for Don certainly caused problems out in public. If
the three of us went somewhere together and Don left to do something else, she
wined and fidgeted until his return. There were many times when she wanted to
drag me to wherever he was, which meant she and I had many arguments. In such
situations she was a poor guide and behaved in ways that were thoroughly
exasperating. Others found the situation funny, but I could never see humor in
those all too frequent experiences.

While I always felt there was something missing in my bond with Fennel,
that all-important bond that so many guide dog handlers speak of so eloquently,
Fennel was still willing to guide me and wanted to do it every single day. It
might be a walk in the area that she’d done hundreds of times before; she
didn’t get bored. It might be at a convention hotel in some distant Georgia
locale, where, if Don wasn’t there, she’d show me how well she could guide. When
she was guiding, Fennel was so responsive to my verbal commands. Unless she was
being distracted by another dog, her attention always returned quickly to me
and to what I was asking of her.

I don’t have stories of adventures shared by Fennel and me. She
didn’t save my life or do anything else heroic. It was that she guided me
willingly and dependably for nearly nine years, and in so many ways the fabric
of our two lives was woven together into one life. That is true no more and the
threads have unraveled.

Over the years Fennel remained generally in good health. I started
having to take her out more frequently to avoid accidents in the house and I
couldn’t let her do the repetitive water drinking she was prone to do if the
cats were acting up or she was bored. More recently, she walked slower at
times, seemed reluctant about certain things, gave me less pull than I was
accustomed to, yet she got impatient if the day went on too long without us
getting out to do something.

In early January she had minor surgery for a tumor on her left eyelid,
and her blood work that day showed normal values for her kidneys and everything
else that is assessed. When we brought her back home she had recovered enough
from the anesthesia to ask for a walk around the neighborhood.

Last Wednesday, February 3, was a typical day. I continued whatever
transcribing project occupied me then. Our walk that afternoon included Publix
to pick up a few groceries. It was warm enough that day that I welcomed a late
afternoon grooming session, something Fennel often would ask for if I hadn’t
gotten to it by dinnertime. She spent time on her own in the yard, though I
don’t recall her running any loops. At dinner she retrieved her bowl from
wherever she’d taken it in the house, but then she stopped eating midway
through her meal. That had happened at breakfast on Sunday, but she made up for
it later in the day.

Then, a while later, as Don and I had started our own dinner
preparations, Don saw Fennel quiver and then collapse. We went over to her and
she was breathing heavily. We weren’t sure what to do then; it was after hours
at our regular vet clinic. I wondered if she were having serious side effects
from the drug the vet had put her on just the day before to address her
nighttime incontinence. We kept watch throughout the evening, and though she seemed
to get more comfortable, she couldn’t stay on her feet for very long. Her
symptoms worsened and at 11:30 we were leaving for the nearby emergency vet.
Don had to carry her to the car. I thought it might be a stroke or vestibular
disease.

While they took Fennel to be assessed, Don and I sat in a room going
through paperwork and signing forms. When the vet came in she delivered news
that I wasn’t expecting, that Fennel’s abdominal cavity was full of blood from
a ruptured organ, likely her liver or spleen. There were no options for saving
her life.

The vet didn’t use the word, but I realized later this was most
certainly hemangiosarcoma, a cancer that rarely is seen in people, but is all
too common in certain dog breeds, including retrievers and shepherds, the
breeds most used for guide dog work. In its most virulent form hemangiosarcoma
tumors develop inside blood vessels and even large tumors may cause no clinical
signs, which makes it unlikely to be diagnosed. The cancer often metastasizes
to other organs and then there is rupture, hemorrhage, collapse, shock and
death. I had heard several stories of guide dogs that had died suddenly from
this cancer, but I thought maybe Fennel had escaped it because the dogs in
those cases had been younger.

I was asked to make a decision and sign a form for the vet to
euthanize Fennel. I just sat there, not able to absorb this news, my thoughts
completely scattered. I wondered, since it was the right time of night, after
12 AM, why I couldn’t just wake up from this bad dream. But I knew sitting
there wouldn’t change anything, and finally I signed, and they brought Fennel
into the room where we were; it was time for us to say good-bye.

She was already dying then, and held by shock and disbelief, I
didn’t convey all I wanted to, my love for her, my gratitude for her dedication
of her life to my independence, my regret that we couldn’t save her life. I
wanted to remember all I could of her physical being, her beauty and strength.

I couldn’t believe as we left the clinic and drove home that Fennel
wasn’t there with us. My disbelief and sense that she must surely be there
continued into that day after a very poor night’s sleep. Her presence remained,
all the places in the house she should have been and wasn’t. I distracted
myself with work as I grieved and started to process what had happened, and
started as well to gather and put up or throw out everything throughout the
house that was hers, the bowls, the mats, the brushes, the pickup bags…and what
to do with the remaining dog food? There were hard phone calls to make, hard
email messages to write.

Then I started to recognize just how much my days were interwoven
with hers, the morning routine, her coming in while I stretched to ask for a
belly rub, the alarms set to take her out extra times, planning for our daily
outing, her reminding me that she wanted to be groomed, taking a break for a
run in the yard, the evening rituals. This had been everyday life with Fennel,
and in different versions with her predecessors, for the past 35 years of being
partnered with guide dogs. In all these years I’ve spent very little time
without a dog, and suddenly it’s all gone, and though the time easily fills
with other activities, there is such a hole in the fabric of my life!

My transitions from one dog to the next have always been smooth,
with very short interludes between dogs. They all lived retired lives as pets with
someone else because I needed my time and attention devoted to adjusting with a
new dog, and when they died it wasn‘t sudden. This is so abrupt, so final, and
I am thrust, unwillingly, into a new phase of life that will last until I can
return to The Seeing Eye. Right now, classes there are at half their normal
size and students are required to quarantine in New Jersey for two weeks before
going into class. There are many, many other applicants like me who also face a
very long wait without a Seeing Eye Dog.

In my moments of optimism I know I can wait until the right match is
found for me, however many months it takes. I can use a white cane again, even
though I am totally out of practice. Thousands of blind people navigate
successfully every day using a cane, yet for me, being so unaccustomed to how
the cane finds every little thing in its path, I find using it slow, awkward
and not at all enjoyable. While the white cane is a tool that will allow me to
get from point A to point B, it’s not exercise, and I need to still be able to
move at a fast pace to once again work with a young, energetic dog. Don and I
have started power walking, though I wouldn’t try doing that independently, and
our little used tandem bike could once again become an enjoyable way to
experience Savannah.

On that first day, facing the reality of Fennel’s death, Don
suggested a walk in her honor. I tried, but couldn’t do it; I turned around and
came home. That walk in her honor will have to wait until I have that first
walk with Fennel’s successor, when I can once again walk independently with
speed and grace. It’s that future walk that holds the promise of the fabric of
my life once again being woven of two lives, mine with this as yet unknown dog,
number six.

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